Israeli president tells West to stop wasting time on Tehran’s ‘games’

THE West must stop “wasting time” on Iran’s “games” aimed at buying time in a race to have nuclear weapons, the president of Israel warned yesterday.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Isaac Herzog called on the UK to work with Israel to stop Tehran from exploiting the world’s willingness to negotiate over a nuclear deal.

“Iran does not want dialogue. It is exploiting the world’s willingness to negotiate to buy time. Israel cannot allow the fundamentalists of Tehran to acquire a nuclear bomb,” he said.

“The moderate nations of the Middle East need their allies, including Britain, to engage them in an urgent dialogue on how to stop Iran instead of wasting time on its games.”

Iran and world powers are set for talks on Nov 29 aimed at reviving an accord that placed restrictions on its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Tehran has always denied it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Talks over the Iran deal stalled in 2018, when the then US president Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement.

Mr Herzog said the new talks were a cover for “Iran’s race toward nuclear weapons and regional hegemony.”

The United States yesterday warned that it was capable of deploying “overwhelming force” in the Middle East if diplomacy failed to halt Iran’s nuclear programme. Lloyd Austin, the US Defence Secretary, said at an event in Bahrain: “We [are] committed to a diplomatic outcome of the nuclear issue.

“But if Iran is not willing to engage seriously, then we will look at all the options necessary to keep the United States secure.”

Since February, Iran and Israel have been engaged in a “shadow war” in which vessels linked to each country have come under attack in waters around the Gulf. The US and Israel accuse Iran of using drones and missiles to destabilise the region.

Iran said it had seized a foreign boat smuggling diesel in the Gulf yesterday.

Mr Herzog, who has British roots, has arrived in the UK for a three-day state visit. He blamed a “breakdown of dialogue” for “a crisis of liberal democracy and a crisis of the world order”.

He said: “Nobody said this would be easy. Extremists shout louder than moderates, and fake news travels faster than truth.

“But if we want to fortify our liberal democracies and global alliances, we must combine Britain’s commonsense and Israel’s no-nonsense approaches.”

With the exception of Iran, Mr Herzog said the Middle East had “changed beyond recognition since many foreign policy orthodoxies were formed”.